Monday, February 2, 2015

Success...Well Maybe -- Email from 2 Feb 2015

Hello.

This has been a good week. We worked hard and this Friday we
received a call from president [saying] that he is going to close our area of Pacheco
because of the lack of missionaries. 45 missionaries are leaving and 20 are
coming. In the next three transfers over 100 missionaries are headed home out
of the 250 that we have. The number of missionaries’ full time here is going to
drop from 250 to like 195. So president
told us that he would rather put us in an area where we are going to have more success. It’s
cool because our mission has the entire city. They are combining the two areas
in Pacheco into one.We’re going to be
working in the other area this week with the other elders to try and strengthen
their areas before we are pulled out. Also, this next Tuesday I get transferred.
I hope I get sent to the capital.

Speaking of success we had two investigators in the capilla [chapel]
this Sunday. One is a child of 8 anos, the son of Norma the old investigator.
He is 8 years old and she wants him baptized so we are going to do it this next
Sunday. The other was a woman named Kris who moved here from Peru two Sundays
ago, and she isn’t baptized but has gone to church since she was little. She
came to the chapel alone and introduced herself to us. So that was a huge
blessing. It’s a bit unlikely that she will be baptized this week but were
going to try to commit her for this Sunday. I’m not leaving until next Tuesday
so I hope that she will commit this Sunday. If she waits for two Sundays the
other elders that take over the area will baptize her.

What I learned this week: I watched other elders who have struggles getting along.Some don’t try to
get along with their compañero.I
realized that it is pretty easy to get along with anyone, you just have to work
hard and really try and smile a lot too.I guess I learned that I can get along with anyone if I want to.

This last week I had a crazy food poisoning Saturday
morning. I woke up and was throwing up for like 2 hours and then I was good
after that. I think it’s because I found a cockroach in our food from the day
before.

Elder Martinez heads home next week. Since it’s his
last p-day, we went to the capital to sight see and buy stuff. Did you know
that Buenos Aires is a state and also city? While Pacheco is in the state of Buenos
Aires, the capital is the big city. We went Abasto mall and looked around
and ate Wendy’s!!! So that was sick. And we are going to walk back in the
street 11 and there are street vendors in that street everywhere. All the black
guys sell watches and sunglasses for cheap. I’m going to buy a couple cool ones because
they have fake Rolexes and other nice brands but I’m not going to use them
until I’m back in the states, or I will get robbed again.

Well I will write you all next Tuesday with my new area and
companion.